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ADDRESS 



RICHARD G. MOULTON, A.M., 

OF Cambridge, Eng., 



University Extension 



MOVEMENT. 



PUBLISHED BY 
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



FOR THB 



EXTENSION OF UNIVERSITY TEACHING, 
1602 Chestnut Street, 

PHILADELPHIA. 






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ADDRESS OF R. G. MOULTON, A.M., 

CAiMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LECTURER IN LITERATURE. 

(Delivered before the American Society for the Extension of 
University Teaching, November 19th, 1890.) 

Mr. Provost, Ladies and Gentlemen : — 

I am invited to lay before you the facts of the University 
Extension movement in England. Only side by side with the 
facts, I want to put also the ideas of the movement ; because 
facts are only useful in so far as they illustrate ideas. The 
facts are simply the body ; the idea of a movement is its ani- 
mating soul. But when I speak of the idea of the movement, 
you must not suppose that I mean something which flashed 
into the mind of James Stuart, or any one else, one fine 
morning. The idea of the movement is continually changing 
and enlarging as the movement goes on. Just as with your 
children at home, while their bodies are growing their minds 
also are growing, so while the facts of the University Extension 
movement in the last fifteen or seventeen years have been ex- 
panding and becoming more various, in the same proportion the 
idea of the University Extension movement has broadened and 
become deeper. 

What, then, is the idea of the University Extension move- 
ment, as we understand it at this date.-* We may first just read 
an official description. " The purpose of the University Exten- 
sion movement is to prbvide the means of higher education for 
persons of all classes and of both sexes engaged in the regular 
occupations of life. It is, in fact, an attempt to solve the problem 
of how much of what the universities do for their own students 
can be done for persons unable to go to a university." That is 
the official description of the purpose of this movement. My 
own definition is shorter: University Extension means "Uni- 
versity Education for the Whole Nation, organized upon Itinerant 
lines." That will be the text of all I have to say to you. 



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But every single phrase in that definition will want careful 
explanation. And first, that phrase, "University education." I 
think it is quite possible that if some of you go out into the streets 
and try to get adherents among your neighbors for this movement, 
and talk of "University education" for the whole people, they 
may find that this idea is not very attractive. I am quite sure of 
this : That if twenty years ago in England we had announced 
University education for the masses, we should have seemed to 
have been advocating a somewhat impracticable thing, very much 
as if we had proposed a means of promoting a late hour for din- 
ner. People would have said, " Dining late may be very well for 
people of a certain class ; it suits them ; but the people in general 
could not manage it, and if they could, they would not gain much 
by it." If we had announced University education for the whole 
nation 'twenty years ago, that would have been the sort of recep- 
tion our message would have met with in very many quarters. 

To guard against any misapprehension of that kind, let me 
begin by saying what may astonish some of you, and for aught 
I know may shock some of you — that University education, as I 
understand it, has nothing to do with universities. I mean that 
University education has no necessary connection with univer- 
sities. I am happy to say that, as a matter of fact. University ex- 
tension in England has had a great deal to do with the universities. 
The old "fossilized universities " of Cambridge and Oxford placed 
themselves at the very head of this movement called " Univer- 
sity Extension:" — I do not say that they rose to the needs of 
the people, they rather went about rousing the nation to the 
necessity of that which afterwards they were ready to supply. 
But though that is true, yet I consider it is also true that Uni- 
versity education, and therefore University Extension, has no 
necessary connection with the particular institutions called uni- 
versities. As a matter of fact, one of the three great branches 
of the movement in England is not managed by a university — 
the branch which provides for the great wants of the vast area 
of London ; this is directed by an association, which simply goes 
to the different universities for lecturers, just as you go to a 
grocery store to provide your household. 



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5 

If, then, University education has no essential connection 
with universities, what does it mean? you will ask. I take it that 
you must define University education in antithesis to school edu- 
cation. As I understand the matter, school education belongs 
to young people ; university education belongs to adults, to the 
busy. School education is, in the nature of things, compulsory — 
it is administered under discipline; University education is pre- 
eminently voluntary. School education is, in the nature of 
things, limited. It is limited with regard to age, being given only 
to young people ; whereas University education begins where 
school education leaves off. School education is still more lim- 
ited with regard to its purpose, which is to bring up a boy or a 
girl to such measure of education as is expected in the rank of 
life to which the boy or girl belongs. If he is to be in one rank 
of life, he must at least know reading, writing and arithmetic, 
and a little more ; or else he will be at a disadvantage with his 
companions and an ignorant fellow. If he is going to move in 
another rank of life, he must have the training suitable to that 
rank, or he will be put down as uneducated. I grant you, of 
course, that schools often, and very properly, do a great deal 
more than this. But I say the essential purpose of school edu- 
cation is limited to bringing a boy or a girl just up to that which 
is expected of them in the rank of life to which they belong. 

But University education is absolutely unlimited. It is not 
only unlimited in its range, but it has no limit of age; it belongs 
to a man's whole life. I grant that your connection with some 
particular university institution may come to an end at the age 
of five and twenty or six and twenty ; but that university has 
failed miserably in its duty if it does not give you those tastes 
and those mental habits which will lead you to go on and work 
for yourself mentally to the very end of your days. We hear 
sometimes of finishing schools. I never heard of a finishing 
university. The essence of University education is that it is 
education for adults ; it is voluntary, it is unlimited in scope, 
unlimited in age ; it applies to a man's whole life. If that be the 
true view of University education, you will see that it has no 
necessary connection with universities, but it is equally the 
interest of all adults who have a desire to take part in it. 



The main basis, the foundation for this great movement of 
University Extension, is a fact^the fact that a change has come 
over the attitude of public opinion with regard to this matter of 
adult education ; that whereas in the past higher education was 
taken for granted as being the property of a class, and education 
in the case of the masses was supposed to come to an end with the 
school age, and in the case only of a very few to go on to the 
adult period ; — a change is coming over the public mind which 
makes education one of the permanent interests of our whole 
life, and side by side, shall I say, with religion and politics, the 
interest of every good citizen. 

And this is one of the great revolutions, which, when you 
see them from a sufficient distance, make up our history. You 
know, if you go back far enough, there was a time when religion 
itself was regarded as a thing for the few ; only the clergy were 
to think on those matters, and the rest were simply to take what 
the clergy gave them. Then there came the great revolution 
of the Reformation, and the whole adult population insisted 
upon thinking for themselves in religious matters. Again, in 
Europe at least, there was a time when political matters were 
supposed to be the property of a class, a governing class, and 
the great mass of the nation had simply to obey. Then there 
came the vast political revolutions which have produced modern 
times, the essence of which is that every adult person considers 
that he has an interest in political matters, and a right to act for 
himself as a citizen of the body politic. Happily, we have no 
revolution this time, but a silent change coming over the body 
of the whole nation — here you will find it clearly marked, there 
you will find it only beginning — but anyhow when recognized 
with an historical eye it is one of the great movements of our 
history; this tendency of the whole adu^t population to claim 
higher education, to claim the life education that belongs to 
university teaching, and to claim it as the heritage of every 
good citizen. Just as in political matters every adult person 
claims to be within the Constitution, so by this new change com- 
ing over us every adult person will claim to be within the Uni- 
versity, in the sense in which I have defined it. 



That is our ground work for University Extension, and in 
that sense, I say, the movement proposes to extend university 
education to the whole nation. 

This leads me to my second point. When we talk of such 
education for the " whole nation," we are met, I think, with a 
good deal of opposition from very practical persons. Persons 
who are accustomed to raise practical objections will say: "My 
dear sir, what do you mean by talking that nonsense .'' Any kind 
of education, university or otherwise, for the whole nation ! 
How can you possibly deal with that vast mass of different 
peo^Dle, some of them with very little previous education, with 
very little time, with very little leisure or inclination, and other 
people, clever, with plenty of leisure, well read beforehand — 
how can you make the same education suitable for all these dif- 
ferent varieties of people.''" In fact, they say, "It is a sort of 
communism that you are preaching to us, educational commun- 
ismx, that a university education should be given indiscriminately 
to the whole nation." Somebody in England made the interest- 
ing calculation that if all the wealth of England were put into a 
common stock and distributed all around equally, every British 
household would have two hundred pounds a year. The discov- 
ery is more interesting than useful. But, I fancy, when we talk 
about University education for the whole nation, our practical 
friends think it is something like a proposal for giving every 
household two hundred pounds a year; that it is a communistic 
proposal. " How can you possibly make the same thing suitable 
for all this great diversity of people.''" 

But, surely, that objection is an unreasonable one. When 
we talk of University education for all classes, we do not mean 
that every individual will get the same thing out of it. What a 
man gets out of your University Extension system will depend, of 
course, on what he brings to it. I take it that University Exten- 
sion will be a sort of stream that runs from the mountain tops 
of the University or similar institutions : the stream flows from 
this height over the whole land, and everybody helps himself as 
he wishes, or as he can. One man helps himself with no more 
than a cup, another man takes a bucket, one man finds a cistern 



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is necessary to supply his wants. Each helps himself and can 
help himself only according to his own capacity. What you 
have to do is to see that the water is pure. 

So I claim that our movement is not a mere theorist's dream. 
It is a perfectly practical thing that this university education 
should be extended to the whole nation without exception. But 
that objection of the practical person leads to a very practical 
point. As soon as you come to put your system into operation 
you will be met at once by a great practical dilemma, and a good 
deal of the success of this scheme will depend on how you deal 
with this. You will be advised from opposite quarters. On the 
one side some one will say, "Now, whatever we do, let us see 
that our University Extension education is every bit as good as 
that they give in universities ; let us have no lowering of the 
standard, but let us make the education outside and within the 
university exactly the same." You at once feel a sympathy with 
that advice. But then somebody will advise you in quite the 
opposite direction. They say, "We want nothing oi the kind. 
Our business is to go where we are most needed, and consider 
the neglected classes of the community. We must be content 
with a make-shift education, the best we can do, the best they 
can take; and we must leave all those fancy schemes, and just 
adapt ourselves to the most neglected classes, and find out how 
little is sufficient to draw them." And you have sympathy with 
that also. How are you to decide between these opposite 
policies .'' 

Here, I think, our experience in England may be useful to 
you. At all events, I will tell you how we have dealt with that 
fundamental dilemma in a system that is to extend a high thing 
like university education to the whole nation indiscriminately. 
We have done this : we have said that what a university does 
for its own students is two-fold. On the one hand, the univer- 
sity has to teach, and, of course, it follows that its teaching is 
to be as thorough and its standard as high as is possible. But 
besides the duty of teaching, the university has also the duty of 
deciding what ought to be taught — the curriculum, as it is called. 
If any body is charged with granting degrees, that body has cast 



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upon it the most important duty of considering what course of 
study, what combination of subjects, and in what order, will 
make a fitting preparation for a degree in a given course of 
liberal education. Those are two main duties of a university- 
method and curriculum. 

Now, in their application to University Extension, you can 
keep those two things quite distinct. And our solution of the 
difficulty in England is that, so far as regards method, our sys- 
tem shall be as thorough outside the university as in it. We 
will not relax one inch. Our standard of University Extension 
teaching shall be as high as— personally, I go further, I say 
higher than— that of the universities themselves. But when 
you come to the course of study, the question as to what is to 
be taught, then, having to serve a vast variety of people with 
all manner of different requirements, your system must be 
elastic. And, therefore, we get, to begin with, a " unit," as we 
call it. Our unit is a three months' course of instruction in a 
single subject. And whatever teaching we do in University 
Extension is given in a combination of units, of these three 
months' courses in particular subjects. We say that we are 
perfectly willing to deal with any local center that is able to 
take no more than a single unit, and we are anxious to have them. 
At the same time, where a town has more funds and more de- 
mands, we are prepared to combine unit course with unit course 
in a proper educational sequence. The University of Cambridge 
has carried such combination to the extent of what is called the 
Affiliation Course : a regular educational sequence of these unit 
courses, which are considered the equivalent of a single year at 
the university, so that those who have gone through the affilia- 
tion course in their own locality are admitted to the university 
as second-year students. And, though that is as far as we have 
gone at present in England, yet there are several of us who are 
resolved never to cease until we have brought it about that a 
complete degree course, equal in every way to the course given 
in the universities, but administered in University Extension 
methods, shall be obtainable by University Extension students, 
no doubt extending over a long term of years, but obtainable 
by them through the system of University Extension. 



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10 



That being so, you see how we have solved this difficulty. 
What a university does for its students is method, curriculum.. 
In method we have resolved to be as thorough or even more 
thorough than in the universities themselves ; but so far as cur- 
riculum goes, we must be elastic. We fix upon our unit system 
of the single term in the single subject. We make our com- 
bination of units. We contemplate going as far as a complete 
degree course followed by degrees. And each locality must 
take advantage of our system so far as its wants permit. 

But, now, I want to dwell a little longer upon what I dare 
say astonishes some of you. I say that the system is as 
thorough as, or more thorough than, that in the universities 
themselves. I want to speak about the University Extension 
method of teaching, putting it to you as an addition to the appa- 
ratus of education. Its elements are Lectures, Class, Syllabus, 
Weekly Exercises, Examinations, Certificates. And in England 
there is no University Extension teaching which does not imply 
all these. 

Let me describe, as a lecturer, the method that is followed. 
First, with regard to the Lectures. We expect the audience at 
our lectures to be as miscellaneous as the congregation of a 
church. That is a very important point. Some people imagine 
that University Extension is only for people who are already 
cultured ; other people imagine that University Extension is a 
system of education for the working classes. I utterly repudi- 
ate such descriptions. We know nothing about social classes 
in University Extension. We wish our audience to include all 
kinds of people, all ages, all degrees of previous education. If 
there is anybody who will be out of place in the congregation of 
a church, that person would be out of place in our lecture audi- 
ence, but nobody else. It is quite true that in some centers, 
owing to the particular locality, or the subject, or the lecturer's 
personality, you will find audiences composed almost entirely of 
mechanics, or of artisans. We are delighted to have it so. 
Some great triumphs have been won in centers of that kind. 
But it is a mistake to suppose that this is a movement simply 
for mechanics — for the working classes. It is for all classes 



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II 



alike. And, taking the movement all over England, we do 
actually get all classes represented in our lecture audiences. 

But we assume that in any audience there will be a nucleus 
of students, or persons who desire to do something besides at- 
tending the lectures ; and our theory is, and practice confirms 
it, that the large audience and the nucleus of students will 
mutually benefit by being united. What we do for our students 
is conveyed in the Syllabus. The Syllabus contains the lecturer's 
own outline for the whole work of his course. We do not expect 
to teach in the lectures. That is a common error. Although I 
am a lecturer, I do not believe in lectures as a mode of teaching. 
The purpose of a lecture is quite different : it is to stimulate 
persons to learn. The lecturer's business is not to give informa- 
tion, which is much better obtained from books. His duty in 
the lecture is to stimulate, to put the right points of view, to stir 
his hearers up to search for themselves. And the Syllabus guides 
the student in his work to the books which are required. 

The students attend the lecture to-day, for example. They 
go home, and with the aid of their syllabus they read and get 
information on the subject. Then we have what are called Weekly 
Exercises — weekly papers they are called here — but I prefer the 
term exercises. A set of questions will be found in the Syllabus, 
and all students are invited to answer those questions at home, 
and send the results in to the lecturer. I want to lay stress upon 
these Exercises. They are entirely different from examinations. 
They are entirely different — so far as I, a stranger, can under- 
stand — from what are called in this country "quizzes." Because, 
I imagine, in the case of quizzes, and, certainly in examinations, 
such things are mainly exercises for the memory. But that is 
just what the Weekly Exercises are not. They are done by the 
student at his own home, at his own leisure. He takes just 
what time he likes. He makes whatever use he can of books 
and papers and any kind of information he can lay hold of- 
"Why," somebody will say, "if you leave him to do them at 
home, he will get somebody to help him." Of course he will, 
and that is what we want ; we want him to get all the help from 
all the sources he can. In fact, we want him to work just as if 



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12 



he was investigating for himself. If you were studying some 
subject, investigating some subject for yourself, would you not 
use books and papers and instruments ? Would you not ransack 
libraries ? Would you not pick the brains of everybody that 
knew more about it than yourself? That is just what we want 
our students to do in Weekly Exercises — get all the help they 
possibly can. They are not exercises to see how much he 
remembers, but they are simply intended to train him to work 
for himself. 

The student does these exercises, and he sends them in to 
the lecturer, and the lecturer's business is to make comments in 
the margin, keeping up, as it were, a regular conversation with 
the student. Then the next week there is the " Class," which is 
held on the day of the next lecture, either before or after the 
lecture. There the lecturer meets the students who have been 
sending papers in to him, and also as many others as like to come, 
and he occupies that hour in any way he pleases, but usually in 
talking about the points that have arisen in the exercises that 
students have sent in to him. For example, when I am examin- 
ing a student's exercise, I make a point of noting down every- 
thing that is at all out of the common. It may be a misunder- 
ing ; it may be a brilliant saying — I get a great many of them. 
It may be some unexpected side light on the matter from some 
person who has special experience. And I take care that the 
whole class has the full benefit of what everybody has said. I 
do not mention names ; everything that is sent in is received in 
sacred confidence. But, I assure you, it is an immense stimulus 
to a student — very often a shy, quiet person — to he'ar some re- 
mark he has put in his paper quoted to the whole class, even 
without his name, and to see the start of admiration over the 
whole room. And we are often equally indebted to people who 
make a mistake : a good, rattling mistake serves to clear up a 
matter for a lot of people who are too hazy to make the mistake 
themselves. Besides, mistakes are good preparation for further 
teaching. Suppose, after a lecture on Marlowe's " Faustus," I 
ask for a description of the final scene. I am quite sure that 
half the students who attempt that would make a mess of it. 




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13 

That is precisely what I want : they imagine that all the dra- 
matic setting can be put in by each reader according to his own 
taste, whereas I should be able to show in class, line by line, 
word by word, that I did not put anything into my description 
of that scene which was not necessarily implied in the wording 
of the author. Moreover, I should branch out into "dramatic 
background " in general from this example, and should show other 
samples of similar treatment, until by the end of the class stu- 
dents would feel that they had known all about dramatic back- 
ground all their life. "Well," you say, "you could do all this 
in a lecture." So I could ; but it would not make the same dif- 
ference to the student : the fact of his having attempted and 
failed, would make my remarks on the subject come to him with 
ten-fold effect. 

Again, I set original questions; I mean questions involving 
original investigation and creative work. When I lecture upon 
Goethe's Fans/, I never fail to put one question in the last paper— 
"Sketch an original epilogue to Faust." You know Goethe 
gives a "prologue in heaven," but no epilogue. Now, I say, 
sketch an original "epilogue in heaven" in order to bring out 
what you think about the working of the story. That draws 
most valuable answers. Of course, I read them all out in class, 
and I have known people converted to belief in University Ex- 
tension by attending such classes. I recall a very distinguished 
man in England, who was present, in one when I read out ans- 
wers of this kind, and he came to me afterwards and said: "Well, 
I did not think much of your lecture, but I do think a great deal 
of the class. I never conceived that you got such work out of 
people in University Extension." And he went on to say, what 
practically came to this, that he would never laugh at University 
Extension again. 

I wanted to speak freely and at length on this subject, be- 
cause I wish you to realize this, which is the strength of our 
system— the free Weekly Exercises of the students given at their 
own home. 

Now comes the key to our whole method : Whatever we 
give by way of Certificates is given upon a combination of the 



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14 



Weekly Exercises and the Examination at the end. . We never 
give certificates for examinations. I am quite sure, if you 
knew as much as I do of examinations, you would not have 
much belief in them. However, people in England have a 
belief in them, unfortunately. But what we do is to make our 
Certificates depend equally upon the lecturers' reports of the 
exercises throughout the term, and the result of a final examina- 
tion. There are some people who can do well at examinations ; 
there are other people who do not. But there are some people 
who do splendid work in the weekly exercises, which are more 
valuable than anything that can be given in examination. Each 
party gets a chance. Different sets ' of mental operations are 
brought into play, and the result is that our Certificates come 
nearer to what certificates should be, I believe, than any others. 
Now that is the method on which we work. 

But then, the proof of the pudding must be, of course, in 
the eating, and you must consider every educational method by 
its success. What success have we had .-' In the first place, we 
have succeeded in getting hold of the people we want. It is a 
fact, right through England, that our lecture audiences are as 
miscellaneous as the congregation of a church. It is equally 
true that those who do paper work, our students, are miscellane- 
ous in the same way. I have known in one case one-third of 
the lecture audience, generally one-fifth, and sometimes a smaller 
proportion, do the weekly exercises. And there is as much mis- 
cellaneousness in the weekly exercises as in the audience. For 
example, I have had exercises sent in by high university gradu- 
ates who happened to be attending the lectures and were inter- 
ested and delighted to fight their old battles over again. And 
I have had weekly exercises from children who wrote in round 
text. I have had many exercises from people who knew the 
subject better than I did myself, and I have also had exercises 
every week from people who could not spell, and whose grammar 
was very questionable. I have had occasional exercises — and 
very bright ones, suggesting something for the class — written 
on post cards : and on the other hand I am quite accustomed to 
have exercises from thirty to thirty-five or forty pages of quarto. 




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15 

I recollect . one case in which I had, week after week, from one 
student, fifty folio pages of notes in close writing and small. I 
regret to be obliged to add that that student was mad. But this 
shows we have actually tapped all strata of English society, not 
excepting the lunatic asylum. 

And with regard to the standard of our work, it is enough 
to say that there is a general consensus of opinion among all 
who have had to do with our work, that the standard of our work 
is precisely the same as the standard of the university itself. I 
am talking now of the result of final examinations — to my mind, 
not the most important test ; but even judging by the final 
examination, we have had it said again and again that our "pass " 
students are just as good as the "pass" students of the univer- 
sity, our "distinction" students in the University Extension are 
just as good as the honor students in the universities. Indeed, 
I was Very much struck with the remark of one person, a most 
distinguished teacher in a university and one who also lectured 
for our Extension movement. I heard him once describe an 
interesting line of work he had been following, and with an eye 
to business I said, "Come now, can't you give us that in a course 
of University Extension ?" He instantly became grave. "Well, 
no," he said, "I have not thought it out sufficiently for that." 
Then he added, " You know, anything does for college, but when 
I have to go before a University Extension audience, and have 
the weekly exercises and the class to provide for, I must have 
thought out my subject before I face them." This is just a speci- 
men of the impression of thoroughness made by our method of 
teaching. 

But in reality the most important results are very much 
oftener those which cannot be put into statistical form, and can- 
not be tabulated. What I attach as much importance to as any- 
thing else is this, that in almost every quarter of England into 
which we go and give a three months' course of lectures by experi- 
enced lecturers, we are certain in that town to hear it said that 
the whole character of conversation and intercourse between peo- 
ple has been altered for the three months. We hear from the 
librarians of the public libraries : " Why, since Mr. So-and- 



i6 



So has been lecturing, the character of the demand in our libra- 
ries has been all changed." We have it said that at five o'clock 
teas — I suppose that is an American institution as well as Eng- 
lish—the character of talk is completely altered. Now, I put it 
to you, that if you are able to go into some district and lecture, 
say on " Paradise Lost," for three months, and know that the 
whole character of the conversation in that district will be mate- 
rially affected by that course — if you know that you can keep 
the attention of that locality upon "Paradise Lost" for three 
months together, that alone constitutes a great educational 
achievement. 

That is what I have to say with regard to the method of 
University Extension. I have said it means University Extension 
for the whole nation, and I have tried to show that you can have 
an elastic system reaching the whole nation, a sort of ladder or 
educational machinery, of which the lowest rung is the single 
course of three months, and the highest round is to be a com- 
plete university course. I have shown that you can have this 
administered with complete university thoroughness. 

But now I come to my last point — the education of the 
whole nation is to be organized upon itinerant lines. It is very 
important to add this, in order to keep University Extension dis- 
tinct from other good movements of the same kind. 

You have in this country some work of the most valuable 
description. You are far ahead of us English people in the mat- 
ter of work that consists of home reading and study. That is 
most excellent work. Do not imagine that I am depreciating it 
for a moment. But I put it to you ttat it is very desirable to 
keep that quite distinct from " University Extension," the distin- 
guishing feature of which is the lecturing. Whatever body is at 
the head of a " University Extension " movement, that body must 
be responsible for the teaching, and it can only do this by an 
itinerant system. It must send these itinerant teachers through- 
out the community. Organize as you will, in the ultimate result 
your teaching will vary with your teachers. 

Then, one other point is implied in an itinerant organiza- 
tion, and this is that you must have both a Central and Local 



^msmmrnmim 



17 

organization. You must have a central body to direct, and in 
each locality some local institution of some kind to take advan- 
tage of the movement. I mention this in order to urge upon 
you this point — do not imagine that the local committee or insti- 
tution is of small importance, that its duty is simply to turn on 
a tap, and let the stream flow to its neighborhood. We find in 
England that the working of the movement depends quite as 
much upon the local organization as upon the central body. 

Then my next point with respect to itinerancy is this — both 
the local organization and the central organization will need 
funds ; money of some kind. We in England have tried, have 
ransacked every form of contrivance, in order to make the move- 
ment pay itself— I mean pay itself out of the fees and tickets of 
the students who attend the lectures ; and we have failed. We 
have come to the conclusion that while an individual course may 
not only succeed, but bring in a handsome profit, yet, taking one 
course with another, one district with another, you cannot pos- 
sibly expect to pay, from the fees of those who attend, more than 
two-thirds, at the outside, of your expenses. And even that is 
where you are only taking the lowest round of the ladder, the 
single course. The difference between that unit course and the 
complete college or university course is simply one of finance. 
And therefore the strength of your movement will lie ultimately 
in its financial organization. In these matters, you know, 
thinkers propose, but finance disposes ; and you will have to 
address yourselves to that important topic — how to provide in 
ane form or another an endowment for this movement. I do not 
know whether the term " endowment " is an unwelcome term to 
In England it creates quite a prejudice, but the fact re- 



you. 



mains that, call it by whatever name you will, somehow or other 
you will have to find some money to supplement the tickets and 
fees of those who attend. Both the local societies and the cen- 
tral body will want such subscriptions as you are invited to give 
to-night. 

We have come to the conclusion in England that not only 
is this true as a fact, but further, as a matter of principle, that 
the movement 02ig-/a not to pay itself from the fees of those who 



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attend. For this reason — it professes to be a movement of 
higher education. Now, you may almost define higher educa- 
tion by saying that it is education that has no market value. If 
you find year after year and term after term that your movement 
can be paid for out of the fees of the students, then you know 
that you are not giving a high enough education. Again, you 
may be quite sure of this, that if you attempt to make the move- 
ment do without endowment you will limit it. You will have 
to keep on the lowest round of the ladder ; or you will limit it in a 
worse way — you will have to make your tickets high priced, and 
therefore keep out the very persons you most wish to benefit. 

But I take broader ground. The movement is a missionary 
movement. And can you think of establishing missions with- 
out funds to back them ? I want to appeal to you strongly on this 
point — the more strongly because some people do not realize what 
a grand thing subscribing is. Let me explain what I mean. 
Everybody realizes — it does not need any explanation — what a 
grand thing endowment is. Your nation is quite wonderful in 
the number of rich men who have left vast sums to endow whole 
universities and schools. It impresses an Englishman that you 
always reckon by millions ; it sounds overpowering. Every one 
feels the grandeur of that ; but people do not feel the grandeur 
of subscribing five dollars and getting others besides themselves 
to subscribe similar sums. It may be a shocking thing to say, 
but it seems to me that, speaking generally, subscribing is a 
higher thing than bequeathing. Of course, it is on a smaller 
scale ; but I often think about those who have left these grand 
sums to public objects — and of course they have done a good 
thing — that they enjoyed the money the whole time of their 
lives, and, when they could get no more out of it, then they gave 
it to public objects. That is a good thing to do, but they gave 
it away, not for themselves, but from their successors. Now, 
everybody who makes an annual subscription of five dollars or 
more is not giving it away from his heirs or successors, but he 
is giving it from himself. Thus those who become members of 
this association, and who get other people to become members, 
and canvass heartily for it, are to my mind doing exactly the 



PiiPpiliSiS^ 



19 

same thing on a smaller scale as those great citizens who have 
left vast sums to found universities ; and, to my mind, they are 
doing it in a better way, because they are assisting their own 
generation and at their own expense. 

This is the one word that I want to leave with you 
this word "missionary spirit." University Extension is pre- 
eminently a missionary movement. And I want to wipe away 
the reproach that at present rests upon higher education, 
that it is selfish compared with the other great interests of life. 
When a man feels strongly upon religious matters, the first thing 
he does is to set about converting others. When a man has 
views on politics, the first thing he does is to agitate and bring 
others to his views. But in the past I am afraid it has been 
true that culture has been selfish, so much so that in England 
the very word has become hateful — the word "culture" has 
come to signify an exclusive and selfish spirit, with " Get away 
from me, I am more cultured than thou " for its motto. That 
has been the spirit of culture in the past. Now, we think that 
one of the missions of University Extension is to wipe away that 
reproach, to call upon everybody who is conscious of having been 
educated, who is conscious of an interest in intellectual matters, 
to feel that this very sense of culture is an obligation upon him 
to go out and help others to be cultured. To infuse a missionary 
spirit into culture— that is the purpose of University Extension. 



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